And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.
Salman Rushdie
One night, years ago, when our sons were still young boys, we went to look at the night sky through a camera obscura, atop the tower of a large building not far from home. In quiet and darkness, we peered through the lens at an inverted image of the stars. We both saw and did not see what hung in the sky above. We saw the stars, but not quite as they are.
Memories, and the language I use to describe them, are like this, a lens through which I peer into the past. The lens is not entirely reliable, the images and ideas more like reflections on the surface of the ocean. Today I share a poem in which I think about the tenuous thread between a lived experience and its articulation.
The Leap Carri Kuhn I jumped from the high ledge, fell, then broke the water’s silent surface. Beneath it, I could see nothing, my body invisible in a cold skin, my limbs moving above the mute deeps. These words are a thin film, between today’s sunlit air and those remembered depths. But they are neither, only a foggy pane through which I see her. A girl, hurling herself into the void above the dark mirror of a wide, unbounded lake. This week I wish you time to savour memories of your own; perhaps write some of them down, and share them with people you love. With appreciation, Carri. P.S. Last week's By Silvered Light, A Hole in the Universe, is here. And you can find out more about camera obscuras here.
A thin film. Agreed, but you shine a flashlight very well.
Brilliant poem! (yours, I mean)